The first-ever reshuffle of his council of ministers by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath  after completing half term of office is an extension of the electoral strategy adopted by the Bharatiya Janata Party since 2014 Lok Sabha election for consolidation of all social groups except Yadavs, Jatavs and Muslims. 

The strategy has paid rich dividends in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the 2017 UP Assembly polls. In Wednesday’s expansion of the Yogi Adityanath ministry, all social groups, barring the Yadav, Jatav and Muslims, are fairly represented.

Though the BJP continues to consolidate its electoral base among various social groups like upper caste and OBCs with inherent contradictions and battle of one-upmanship for greater share in power cake, it has never officially excluded the Yadavs, Jatavs and Muslims. The electoral strategy of the ruling party has blunted the anti-BJP social groups which vote with the sole aim of defeating the BJP come what may.

As per the caste break-up of the 23 ministers promoted and inducted in the council of ministers, seven are from OBCs, including Jat and Gujjar, five from non-Jatav Schedules Castes, six Brahmins, two Rajputs and three from Vaishya community.

The caste equations have been tactfully handled in the ministry reshuffle by bringing in six Brahmins, four Kshatriyas, as many Vaishyas, a Gujjar, a Jat, a Lodhi and one MLA from the most backward class Kashyap community. 

The newly sworn-in ministers from the Brahmin community are Neelkanth Tiwari, Satish Dwivedi, Chandrika Prasad Upadhyay, Anand Swaroop Shukla, Anil Sharma and Ram Naresh Agnihotri. Kamal Rani Varun. 

A Scheduled Caste MLA has been given Cabinet rank.  

Minister of State Shriram Chauhan is from the most backward class Lonia community and Giriraj Singh Dharmesh represent the SC community. Ministers Ravindra Jaiswal, Kapil Dev Agarwal and Mahesh Gupta are from the Vaishya community. Anil Rajbhar and Neelima Katiyar come from backward classes.

What is most noticeable is the consolidation of Jats and Gujjars of western UP under the flag of the BJP. These two dominant castes of west UP had always been at daggers drawn-kind of social relation. The BJP can claim the credit for reconciling both the social groups. 

During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had lost the Moradabad, Bijnor, Nagina, Amroha and Saharanpur Lok Sabha seats. For the future elections, the BJP has firmed up its base among the Jats and Gujjars. Ashok Katariya, a Gujjar from Bijnor, has been inducted as minister of state with independent charge while Bhupendra Singh Chowdhary, a Jat from Moradabad, has been promoted as Cabinet minister. Surendra Nagar, a Gujjar leader from Noida who was Rajya Sabha member of the Samajwadi Party, had recently joined the BJP.

Maintaining the regional balance in the council of ministers has always been a contentious issue for all political parties in the state. The BJP has deftly handled the issue. As per the regional break-up, western UP has bagged the lion’s share with 11 ministers followed by eight from eastern UP, three from Awadh region or central UP, and one from Bundelkhand region. 

The BJP has also focused on youth as most of the ministers of state and those promoted as Cabinet ministers are young leaders, thus paving the way for grooming of new leadership for the coming years.

“All communities have been given importance in the new council of ministers. It is also a well-balanced mix of young and senior leaders,” said a BJP spokesman. 

Earlier, despite a massive mandate in the 2017 Assembly elections, not all regions could be given representation in the council of ministers. This issue was resolved with the first expansion of the ministry as now ministers from Agra, Bundelkhand, Muzaffarnagar, Varanasi, Basti and Kanpur zones have been included in it.

Despite many positives, the representation of women in the council of ministers has decreased as the number of woman ministers has come down to four from the earlier five. One woman minister, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, had resigned after getting elected to the Lok Sabha while two ministers, Anupama Jaiswal and Archana Pandey were asked to resign. Only two woman ministers were inducted in the ministry on Wednesday — Kamal Rani Varun and Neelima Katiyar.